The Road Not Yet Travelled
by blinkblink
Summary: "Of all possibilities, the only one he had truly never expected – now or at any other time – was to find himself working in the petshop." Leon and D struggle to find a new dynamic to provide what they need: each other. Sequel to Simple Gifts. Mild Leon/D.
1. Part 1

Disclaimer: Don't own Petshop of Horrors or the characters.

Notes: This is a direct sequel to Simple Gifts; if you haven't read it, you will be confused. The second half should be up in a week or two.

_The Road Not Yet Travelled_

Leon quite simply wasn't expecting anything. Like thin glass under a hammer, he had shattered all at once, and was beyond making predictions. Was beyond caring how things changed, so long as they did.

But of all possibilities, the only one he had truly never expected – now or at any other time – was to find himself working in _the_ petshop.

* * *

"Of course," says D, much less coyly than he could have, "I don't have to show you around." Sitting on one of his elaborately embroidered ornamental couches, he gives a casual wave of a purple-nailed hand.

Leon, standing in front of the matching couch, simply stares at him. D had promised him a new job, led him there with bright eyes and a blank face. His heart began to sink as soon as they entered Neo Chinatown, but hadn't hit rock bottom until D unlocked the door and motioned him inside.

"You want me to work here," he says flatly, tone conveying every ounce of his ton of scepticism.

"You do have the experience," replies D, without clarifying which experience it is he's referring to – five months working in a tiny Tokyo pet shop, or two years tearing this one apart searching for a chargeable felony.

There's a considering pause. It's beyond Leon's rather limited powers of expression to put into words all the things that are wrong with this offer, this possibility. But he can sum up his feelings for his current situation much more concretely: it's fucking hell. Leon's no social butterfly, but even he hungers for some form of human contact he can understand, and he's starving to death in Tokyo. He despises his job – less the job itself than the absolute lack of stimulus it provides – he's living in a hovel of a motel, and he's steadily drinking and smoking himself into an even earlier grave than the one he'd always predicted. He's living a dull, empty life, and that's exactly the opposite of everything Leon Orcot needs to thrive. Needs to survive.

"Of course, I'm not twisting your arm, Leon. You're free to refuse my offer. I won't take it amiss," D says lightly, before narrowing his eyes and leaning in just enough that a shadow falls over his face, "but I won't offer again. Generosity has never been one of my gifts."

He leaves it at that, but Leon can read the implication under the words clear enough: _I've offered you three chances now, and I'm losing patience._

"Two and a half years ago," he begins, and sees D's eyes flicker, the closest the Count'll come to flinching in a situation where he has the whip-hand of Leon. Leon corrects himself, "Two years ago, I'd never have believed you had any."

D relaxes, the whip left unraised.

"Which of us has changed, then? You or I?"

Leon shrugs. "Why not both? You would never have made that offer in L.A. And I would never have listened to it." He would have laughed in D's face, would have kicked over a table, would have walked out. Would never, for a second, have considered it.

"And now? I've made it, and you've listened." D plaits his fingers together delicately in his lap and watches Leon with cool appraisal. As though the answer means nothing to him.

Leon wonders how all of a sudden all the decisions in his life have become limited to two options, with the wrong one spelling disaster and no way to tell until he's made the choice. Wonders whether it was always like this and he just never noticed, has dodged a thousand bullets by sheer luck. Wonders whether that's all life _is_, blindly dodging bullets until you stumble and take one to the head, the one you never even saw coming.

Taking the road less travelled's all very well, but there's a reason it's less travelled and that's often because it leads off a fucking cliff.

D raises one elegant eyebrow in silent inquiry. _Well?_

"Well," he says, pulling the unspoken word out of the air and tossing it back, "it means cutting ties either way."

D's expression indicates he has no interest in this prevaricating.

"But somehow," he continues slowly, "I don't think the Hayashis'll miss me much." He really has no idea, nor does he particularly care. But it's worth it to see the change in D's face, the flash of his eyes which even his mask of indifference can't hide.

Leon realises for the first time that there is insecurity behind D's haughty façade. Insecurity, and desire for something outside his petshop. And that he is very nearly ashamed of it.

Now the flippancy has passed, though, and Leon's left with the hard part, and it is _hard_. It only has to be one word, three letters, but it represents the antithesis of what he's worked for for more than _four years_, the end of a mission he's given everything he had to. Somehow now it feels disturbingly like a crusade, like a mindless quest. _I'm no Vesca Howell, to go hunting you for decades fuelled by a grudge_, he said five months ago. Maybe his goals were different, but he's no longer so sure the driving forces behind him and Howell were so dissimilar.

He's not here to bust D, not here to object to his morals – morals he still can't agree with but at the same time no longer seem quite so ridiculously unsupportable as they once did. _I want to know what you are_. That's why he's here.

That's what he tells himself.

The truth is, there's a tangled nest of emotions driving him on, and making sense of them is no easy feat. But practicalities are a different matter, and he knows that he cannot live the life he's been struggling through in Tokyo much longer. It's either cede to D, or cede the mission.

Well, fuck it, he's never had much trouble with screwing up his life. Or cutting his ties.

"I'll do it," he says, words tumbling out in a rush like rocks dislodged from a cliff into a stormy sea below. "God damn me, I'll do it."

He's expecting a smile, expecting _the _smile, that coy honey-coated twist of the lips that proclaims D's self-considered superiority better than any of his ridiculously formal speeches or ever-perfect dress. Instead he sees surprise and then, so quick he almost misses it, a flash of anxious relief. It's covered up immediately by a meaningless calm, an empty smile. But Leon knows it was there, knows what's under that mask, and he won't forget. He almost feels he might have made the right choice.

"Very well," says D in a dementedly significant voice, and holds out his right hand. Cocks an eyebrow which completely upsets his poise. "I did not spend five years in America and come away knowing nothing," he explains fussily.

"Yeah," says Leon. "Just think how well you could curse if you put your mind to it," and takes D's hand. It's surprisingly firm. And warm.

* * *

D offers to let him stay in the petshop – Leon remembers that about the old one, always so much space in nothing but a few rooms – with a slight tug of hesitancy about his words. Leon declines politely; it's too much too soon and they both know it. D adds, slightly more acerbically now that the awkward business is concluded, that Leon had better dress the part.

* * *

Leon shows up for his first day on the job – a thought he can hardly process without feeling something in his stomach somewhere between humour and horror – dressed in the slacks he wore to work at the other store, and a plain dark polo shirt. D frowns but says nothing.

The thing about the petshop is, it doesn't actually require much work. If it did, D wouldn't be doing it. What it mostly requires is someone with sharp eyes judging who should take what home with them, and D is more than capable of fulfilling that role.

"What I thought you could do," he says, with the absent smile that is his usual expression, "is make a catalogue of the pets." He indicates a clipboard set on the coffee table usually used for conversations with customers.

"But you already know what's in the store," says Leon, who can't imagine otherwise.

"Of course. But you do not. It is important for you to become acquainted with the occupants of the store. T-chan and Pon-chan can accompany you," he adds, gesturing to the shadows. The tiger-goat steps forwards, big cat paws silent on the shining floor. The European badger is on its back, staring at him with bright beady eyes. Leon's become used enough to the idea that the animals here aren't what they seem to be able to pick up on the outlines of their other forms. The boy with the red hair and horns in a vest and loose pants, the little girl with long blonde curls in an elaborate frilly dress. Staring at the two images at once makes his eyes hurt.

"I'm not Chris," says Leon. The pair bristle slightly; the boy frowns, the girl's lips tremble.

"How true." D's smile hardens, and Leon wonders for the first time whether the Count might actually miss his brother, whether any of Chris's sentiments were returned by the man. The realization that it never occurred to him to wonder before drops a weight into his stomach that feels strangely like shame. "Nevertheless, some of the pets are dangerous. And not all of them harbour very positive sentiments towards you. You should have guides."

Great. The animals want to eat him. Why? Because he's been hunting D? Because he tried to shut the shop down? Because he came back? Because D wants him to stay? Leon's never bothered with the feelings of D's pets before, not any further than being aware that too many jibs might set T-chan on him. The idea that there may be herds of lions and tigers loose in the bowels of the store waiting to eat him, though, is just a little off-putting. Not any more than responding to domestic disputes or reported shots fired or potential gang wars, though.

"Right," he says, crossing his arms.

D's painted lips part to reveal white teeth, head tilting with a fall of ebony hair. "Don't worry, Leon. They would almost certainly rather avoid my ire than eat you."

Leon glowers. "Thanks. I feel so much better now."

Behind them, the door opens, chimes jangling brightly. "Well, off you go then," he says, turning to greet the entering customer. Leon picks up the clipboard, gathers the two waiting animals with an unenthusiastic glance, and walks through the curtain to the back of the shop.

Just like in L.A., the back corridor is a veritable maze, full of twists and turns and branches and doors. Leon, with the tiger-goat and European badger behind him, tucks the clipboard under his arm so as to have both hands free, and opens the first door.

* * *

It's surprising, but despite being in the petshop all day he doesn't actually see D very much. He spends his time in the back rooms, conducting his inventory, while D seduces potential clients into buying pets that may end up eating their eyeballs. He feels less conflicted about that than he expected to.

The inventory proceeds slowly. Each room has not one pet but an entire menagerie of them waiting to be classified and counted, and as Leon is no zoologist his lists mainly fills up his paper with:

Bird, some kind of crazy turkey: 2

Bird, weird huge beak, tiny feet: 1

Bird, green flamingo: 1

Buffalo, miniature: 1

Cat, brown: 10

Cat, black: 12

Cat, white: 5

Cat, ginger: 3

Cat, other: 9

Chimpanzee: 1

And so on. He's aware that the list isn't supposed to serve a purpose. Probably it wouldn't matter that he even made one, except that it forces him to check every room carefully to see that he doesn't miss anything hiding in the corners.

T-chan and Pon-chan aren't very helpful. They mostly trail him into the rooms and sit down by the door while he wanders about looking for life in the various climatic zones. The tiger-goat steps in only once, when some alligator-like creature looked offended at Leon's presence in his part of the river, and even then he only acts when the alligator has knocked Leon's legs out from under him with a sweep of his huge tail and begun snapping a very toothy mouth at him.

He's not sure whether they don't like him for some reason to do with Chris, or some reason to do with D, or just because he's him. It's probably fair. He's never preached anything but human supremacy, and he's done it in front of them often enough.

Leon is passed the stage of being disturbed by the human faces of the creatures, floating above them like silent, pale ghosts. But it seems, as he carries on with the inventory and delves deeper and deeper into the heart of the shop, that the faces are appearing more easily, with more substance. That, when he turns to look at his two "guides," there is more solidity, more colour in them then before. That he is beginning to see people, rather than spectres.

He still doesn't know what it means.

* * *

D is sitting down to a cup of tea and a plate of thin, pastel-coloured cakes when he finishes for the day. Wrist sore from more writing than he's done since college and clothes dirty and in some places torn from the less friendly pets, Leon appears from the back feeling absurdly like some jungle explorer returning to civilization.

D looks up, and makes a face at his appearance.

"It's not my fault," says Leon, and sits down on the couch regardless of the tiny flicker of prissy horror he sees in D's eyes. "It'll wipe off."

D sets his lips into a thinner line than usual, but speaks in an even, _I'm not angry – yet _tone. He can do calm to murderous fury in less than a second. "And how was your day, Leon?"

"Long." Leon's not quite so uncouth as to put his feet up on the table, or at least not quite willing to provoke D to that extent. "I knew the store was big, but…"

D nods absently. "Yes, new pets are always arriving. There are always births, usually several at once. And then there are those who come to me from the outside, by my hand or otherwise." D raises an eyebrow and glances directly at Leon, who looks away first. "But I am sure it was educational. You will continue tomorrow?"

"I guess. There's still a lot left to do. I doubt I'm halfway done. Writing it all down takes time."

"Of course."

It's a bizarre, stilted conversation. The relationship between employer and employee is not only strange between them, it's one neither of them has much experience with in general. Leon never really considered himself an employee when working as a police officer, just someone working under the lieutenant, who he had to submit reports to and take orders from now and then. Working under the Hayashis was like being employed by a piece of paper – there was no relationship, just a fact.

It's also, Leon realises, the beginning of a new pattern of interaction. One much closer to what they had in L.A., one where they see each other often. And he's bitterly aware that, thrown into the mix, there's an added complication. Entirely apart from his social reasons to avoid fighting with D, he can't risk his pay.

The image of D handing him money flares through his mind like a camera's flash. It's just as distasteful now as it was last time. As though he's something lower than a friend, lower than a _pet_.

As though – he forces himself to put into words the thought he's been avoiding in the months since it happened – he's prostituting himself to D.

He isn't. He knows that. It's not even similar – there is no obligation here, no purchase of services that shouldn't be bought, nothing being given that Leon doesn't want to give. But he's doing a job that doesn't need to be done, simply because D pities him. Pities him, and wants him. And is paying for him to stay.

Mouth suddenly tasting of bile, Leon rises. "Well, see you tomorrow," he says abruptly, voice harsh. D blinks, surprised.

"Surely you would like to stay for tea? After all your hard work…" He's trying to read Leon's thoughts, Leon can tell. Trying to see the truth in his eyes.

"No thanks," spits out Leon, turning quickly. "See you."

He strides quickly out of the shop, chimes rattling violently behind him.

It was the right decision to make. He felt nearly certain of it at the time, felt it was the _only_ decision to make. But now all he can think of is D with money in his hand and a coy smile on his lips. Buying what he wants.

Feeling sick and confused, Leon staggers home to the half-bottle of rum waiting for him.

* * *

It was so easy, he thinks as he walks slowly back to the petshop the next day with a headache and a bad taste in his mouth, to pretend it was really nothing but a job. So easy, filling out that ridiculous inventory, to pretend he had simply managed to find a situation that might actually make him happy.

There are no strings attached, Leon knows that. D doesn't give charity, Leon knows that too. But when he twists it in his head long enough, he can see so clearly that there _are_ strings and this _is_ charity.

D is sitting on the couch dressed in sea foam-white and cool ocean-blue when he storms in. It's some kind of two-part wrap, Leon notes distantly, a tight white under-layer with a shirt and skirt over it formed of some crinkled silken material twined around him. Unusual colours, for D. It looks good against his white skin, like a tropical sea against white sand, but then D always looks good.

He glances up as Leon enters, with a sharp, predatory grin rather than the welcoming one of yesterday. "Good morning, Leon."

"D," he says, seating himself heavily on the other couch. "I've been thinking."

"You do too much of that," replies D almost instantly, eyes flashing over Leon. His grin disappears almost entirely to show that he is not goading. Leon ignores him.

"I appreciate …this. The offer, the job."

D's eyes narrow, gold and violet shadowed by heavy lashes.

"But I can't do it. It's – you don't need me. This isn't a job, D. It's pity. It's charity." He uses the word purposely, knows it'll stick in D's throat. Knows it will cut. Better to make it a short fight.

"I don't give charity, Leon. I've told you that before."

"You've lied before, too. Words don't mean anything to you; you said so yourself."

D purses his lips, cheeks flushing a pale rose-bud pink, long hands twisting in the rumpled fabric of his skirt. Stupidly beautiful as always. Right now, Leon hates him for it.

"You asked if we could not go back to the way we were. You asked if I could not give you what you needed if it was something we both wanted." D's hands slip out from the tangle of blue with a sheer sound, and he uses one to slice through the air in a sharp gesture. "I have gone against my principles to do what you asked. Why, then, can you not accept it?" He snaps the words out short and sharp as claws, the tips of his white teeth shining against purple lips. It's not petty anger at being refused. It's genuine, furious confusion. And, Leon can read with a cold twisting sensation in his stomach, fear of losing what has finally been gained.

"Because it's a lie. A sop. Because you're just paying me to stay. Paying me to –"

"I offered you an easier way," spits back D, before he can finish. _I might tell more to a lover_, he had said, so long ago it seems almost closer to a dream than reality. "Your refusal brought us here. I cannot continue to pander to your beliefs and morals. You asked for help, and I gave it. I haven't made any conditions, haven't tied any strings –"

"_But they're still there_," snaps Leon. "No strings? Don't be ridiculous. I'm here at your request, doing meaningless work that doesn't need to be done for a cheque and the chance to see you, and someday if you get bored of me or if I'm too crass or finding the money becomes too much of a chore, you'll just kick me out. I'm nothing but your paid convenience.

"You have too much pride, Leon," says D coldly, eyes like frozen gems in an face of ice. "Yes. It is a… a sop," he rolls the unfamiliar word off his tongue like a round stone. "You want to stay. I want you to stay. You refuse to stay doing nothing, and you cannot work anywhere else. What other option do I have? _What is it you want, Leon?_"

And that's just it. The whole and entirety of the problem. Leon Orcot doesn't know what he wants.

He wants to know about D, about his crazy plans, about his bizarre pets with the human faces. That's what he told Lau, what he told D, what he tells _himself._ It's true. But it's not the whole truth. There's more, a twisted, hidden, quashed desire that shivers inside him when he's with D. When he thinks about D. And he's afraid to even consider it, because it has a chill about it that suggests unplumbed depths greater than he can imagine.

He doesn't know what he wants, because he's afraid to examine himself. Afraid that he might find desire to be not one of many driving forces, but _the_ driving force. Even now, after nearly a year living in Tokyo for the sake of being near D, he can still hardly admit that to himself.

Leon stares helplessly at D. The anger that so often comes to his aids in their quarrels, that fired him earlier, is gone. He has no answers. D's right. His arguments stand up, strong and straight as soldiers, and show that everything Leon has ever wanted is foolish and impractical.

"I want – to stay," he says, slowly, trying to line up his own ideals and finding that they slip through his fingers like soap.

"Then stay," says D, irritated.

"But –"

D cuts through him, a blade through butter. "Stop twisting yourself up like a puppet in its strings. You were never a man of great morals, I can't see why you've suddenly taken them on. I repeat what I said: you are under no obligations other than to fulfil your work. Unless you break my trust, or that of this store, I won't … 'kick you out.'" He follows his habit of tossing Leon's words back at him, as if he's afraid if to save himself the trouble of thinking up new ones.

Leon's lost a lot of arguments with D, but none this decisively. It's almost dizzying, the feeling of being so thoroughly overwhelmed. D still seems annoyed though, either at the stupidity of his new employee or at having to argue in favour of what he sees as violations of his own code.

"Well, you can continue your inventory today," he prompts after a moment of silence. Leon takes the hint. The clipboard is on the table; he picks it up and heads to the back, head bowed.

* * *

One of the good things about their relationship – if it can be called either a good thing, or a relationship – is that they're so used to quarrelling that moving on is hardly even a process which requires thought anymore.

Admittedly, the current issue is both larger and more novel than their usual fights. But still, when he pads out of the back, tired from another full day of counting animals he's never seen before who nevertheless are more than happy to try to eat him, D is waiting with tea and cakes.

Leon folds gratefully into the couch's uncomfortable embrace, even picks up his tea.

He's afraid to speak, he realises, sitting on D's couch sipping D's tea out of D's cup. Afraid he'll end up out on a ledge again, afraid D won't be willing to talk him down. It smacks of their previous eggshell relationship, of his fear of damaging that. He's tired of being afraid, but until he can find a firmer footing he doubts it will evaporate.

They sit in silence rather than making mundane conversation, which suits Leon just fine. He's happy to scrap with D on trivial matters, but having a dull conversation about his day would just be sickeningly false.

Leon finishes his tea and puts the cup down on the table. Stretches awkwardly, and stands. D, who has been munching daintily on a cake, looks up. His raven hair is falling over his eyes, so that Leon can only see a cat-like glimmer of gold and violet from beneath the dark strands.

"Will I be seeing you tomorrow?" asks D, pleasantly. His hands, Leon notes, although open are tense; he can see the tendons standing out like wires under the pale skin.

_I want you to stay_, he had said, earlier. Leon had hardly separated it from the rest of the argument, barely noticed it with the ocean of unhappy confusion crashing down over his head, but he remembers it now. It's the first time D's admitted it straight out, not simply in coy hints or veiled offers.

And, damn him, he wants to stay too. And when it comes right down to it, that's all that's ever mattered to Leon Orcot.

"I haven't finished the inventory yet," he says by way of answer, heading for the door. Stops before he gets there, still reflecting on the morning's argument. "D?"

D turns, expression somewhere between curious and watchful.

"Thanks. For earlier –"

D makes a sour face. "I told you, Leon. I don't give –"

"Not that," cuts in Leon, before he can finish, before they can start rehashing. "For arguing for me."

D's face freezes, and for an instant Leon can see the cracks in his mask. Can see the shock, and the pleasure. And knows he's made the right decision.

"My dear Leon. Two thanks in one day. Soon I won't recognize you." D doesn't quite hit the catty tone he's aiming for, and Leon smiles as he pushes the door open.

"Don't get used to it."

* * *

It shouldn't work out as well as it does. In a way, it doesn't, really. Leon is painfully aware that he's doing simply make-work work, feeding animals who can fetch their own food, taking care of natural habitats that don't need taking care of, cleaning a store which D and the pets are perfectly capable of keeping clean on their own. But still, the days pass and the job goes on, and he fails to be struck by lightning.

_It shouldn't work this well. _He's conscious of the thought always running in the back of his brain. He's taking care of animals that murder, animals sold specifically to kill. He's doing the hard labour for the man who _sells them_ to kill. With each sale, Leon wonders whether there will be corpses on the evening news, and if there are how much of that responsibility will be his.

But the longer he works here, the harder it's becoming to see it in the black and white shades he used to. Because the animals aren't just animals. They really and truly are people.

He can see them now, properly. Hardly sees the animal form at all, which is something of a relief since it abates the headaches the effective double-vision was giving him. And he can hear them, some stronger than others, but generally at least enough to get by. He knows that T-chan has a raucous voice with a street kid's slurred accent and that he thinks Leon is a moron, that Pon-chan is quiet and sweet and worries. That Ya-san the old dog is an elderly well-groomed military-looking man with a shaky voice, that Pen-chan the little sparrow-boy twitters in a child's high tones. And there are dozens, hundreds of others. D doesn't have a menagerie here, he has a residence.

The people who come in to purchase pets understand that. Understand, at least, that the pet they buy is special. Is a person. Needs to be treated as a person.

Leon knows all the incidents, the deaths, the _murders_ back home came about by people breaking contracts. Not mistreating the animals they had been given, but mistreating the _people_ they had taken home. Knowing that, it's a hell of a lot harder to fault D.

He wonders why D never put it that way, but knows as soon as the thought occurs. He would never have believed it.

* * *

Most evenings before Leon goes home to the hovel that is his room in the long-term motel, they have tea. Sometimes they talk, although there's less to bicker about now that Leon is so unsure of his stance as regards the pets. Sometimes they sit in silence, and it feels companionable.

Tonight, Leon's drinking the tea – D's trying out another new tea pot made of what looks like black jet – thinking vaguely about whether he could get an apartment and if so whether he could do it without D finding out, when the other man puts down his cup and asks, "How is your brother?"

Leon, startled out of his thoughts, has to take a second to recoup. "Huh? Oh, fine. I write to him. He's going to school again, seems to like it. He's a bright kid; hopefully the missed time won't matter too much. He says he's getting along well with my cousins, so that's good. They're siblings, really. My aunt thinks of him like her son."

D nods absently, staring into the distance or more likely the past. "I am glad he's doing well," he murmurs.

"D?"

D blinks, eyes focusing, and raises his eyebrows slightly.

"Why could Chris see them? And then afterwards, why couldn't he?"

D sighs, raises a narrow hand and presses his thumbnail against his bottom lip in thought. "It is a matter of mindset," he says slowly. "When Chris came to the shop, he was both very much a child, and also very much alone. Desperate, grasping, wanting. Human emotions, of course, but also extremely feral ones. He was able to see the animals partially because as a child he lacked the usual complicated thoughts and conceptions adults tangle themselves up in, but also because he was looking at the world almost as more of an animal than a boy at that time. Seeking the security and protection of a pack. And he found it here, with them."

Leon opens his mouth to argue that his brother is _not _feral, but pauses. Remembers staring down at Chris, so full of anger and desperation, all big eyes and silence. He hadn't been anything like an animal, of course. But… he hadn't been entirely a little boy, either.

"And then afterwards?"

D shrugs and lowers his hand, interest apparently forgotten. Continues in a flat, disinterested voice. "Afterwards he lost the mind frame. Lost it the minute he regained his words and remembered what it was to be entirely, wholly human. To be just another little boy with no more worries or concerns than the average one." D's tone edges away from ambivalence towards distaste, lips twitching towards a frown.

Leon bristles, but holds back his initial reply. The memory of handing D Chris's letter slices through the stream of his thoughts, D's terse, hidden anger after reading it. Whatever was in it, Leon can hardly imagine it was anything that would make any normal person angry. Surely something childish, asking him to write, maybe, or take care of himself, or even god forbid something to do with Leon. It was most likely the fact of the letter itself rather than its contents, the reminder of Chris and his existence and past in the shop, that set D off.

"You don't have to dislike him just because he's a normal human, D," says Leon, and sees by the sudden sharp flash in D's eyes that he's hit the target right in the gold.

"Of course not," replies D, falseness standing out a mile.

Leon's eyes narrow. "But you do. After all that time together, after everything you did for him, you dislike him just for his humanity. Or is it because he chose to leave, rather than stay?"

"I encouraged him to leave," says D coldly. "He belonged – belongs with his people."

"So why do you resent it? He won't forget, you know. He won't become what it is you hate in us, a thoughtless killer."

"He will," replies D. "By the very fact of his existence, he will. He will never even notice it, but for his sake thousands will die." D's eyes are narrow, glinting like a cat's in the low light. His robe, dark velvet with little jewels sprinkled here and there like stars, sets off the paleness of his throat and neck, rising above the soft fabric like the moon.

Leon opens and closes his mouth soundlessly. D looks at him, and Leon sees not anger, not distaste, but regret and pain. "I don't dislike Chris, Leon. Quite the opposite. But in his time here in this shop, he made friends with its inhabitants. He learned their ways, their thoughts. He respected them, even if he didn't quite understand what they were. He would never have harmed any of them, never have allowed any harm to come to them. And now, living as a human, without even knowing it he will be responsible for hundreds – thousands – of deaths without ever even being aware of it. Perhaps when he is older he will realise. But most likely, his time in the shop will be just a foggy memory. I don't dislike your brother. I regret that, because of me, his principles will be destroyed with violence without his ever knowing it."

"That's really twisted, D." The words slip out of him without thought. Leon is appalled, is staring in dull horror at the man across from him in a kind of incomprehension he hasn't felt in years. It's been a long time since D's brought out an idea that shocked him this badly.

"Yes," agrees D passively. "The kind of thought I am sure you would never have, or approve of. But it is true nevertheless."

"Don't you dare go telling my brother that," growls Leon, sudden apprehension blooming in his stomach.

D smiles painfully, all twisted nails and broken blades. "He wouldn't understand if I did. It would be pointless."

"D –"

D rises, a smooth movement of black velvet, and it's like the sky whirling above him. "Don't worry, Leon. I told you to reassure you, although I seem to have failed. I won't contact Chris." He's already halfway to the back curtain, finished with the conversation.

Leon, on the brink of snarling _good_, holds himself back. Remembers Chris' tears over the phone, remembers the letters imploring him to find D, and sighs. "I didn't say that," he bites out. "Just – don't screw the kid up, okay? For some crazy reason, he misses you."

D pauses, face locked hard into a flat expression, but Leon still sees the flicker of expression in his eyes. D must hate them. They're beautiful, but to a trained observer they give him away every time.

"I will keep it in mind," he says, and disappears into the back of the shop.

* * *

D deals with a lot of unsavoury people. Leon was perfectly aware of it in L.A. – the Mob, the Tongs, crooked politicians and drugged-up celebrities – but it's almost reassuring to see it here. The one part of D's enterprise that he finds he is mostly agreeing with these days is doing work the police will never be able to, and in Japan that includes whittling down the yakuza.

They mostly come late at night, so that Leon only sees them if he stays late for some reason or another. Big men in expensive suits whose body-language screams _get out of my way_. Some of them are missing the tips of their pinkies, others have shaved heads or dyed hair. It's dangerous, of course, and not just for reasons of legality, but that's never worried D. As far as Leon can tell, it's not a stance that's ever harmed him.

Of course, Lau won't be pleased. But Leon hasn't seen him since he started working in the petshop; perhaps the man has been away, or visiting in the evening hours, or simply decided to wait for D to make a mistake. Leon doesn't really care – he doesn't want to see Lau. Not after the deal he made, relatively harmless as it was.

* * *

They talk more often in the evenings now. Plenty of bickering, of course, but an undercurrent of conversation. Leon fulfilling his detective role, D allowing him to.

"How is the shop so big?" he asks one night, receives a glittering, coy smile in return.

"Very simply, my dear Leon. Magic."

"Come on, D."

"I am afraid I cannot explain it more thoroughly. Not for now, at least. It isn't a secret, more of a …" D twists his hands as he casts about for a word, Leon watching the slim fingers intertwining and separating again, " – a pact. It's not my doing."

"Why can I see the pets?" Leon asks, another night. D pauses with a white cup against his painted lips, the bright contrast catching Leon's eye.

"That," he answers primly, "is indeed a mystery. Either it is because you want to, or because you have begun to believe."

"Believe what?" asks Leon, laying aside the first suggestion as ridiculous.

"Why, that I am right," answers D, in feigned surprise.

"What are you?" he asks, still another night, because he's not getting any closer to figuring it out simply working with the man. D is dressed in violet and gold silk that matches his eyes with absurd perfection, cloth bringing them up in such a manner that Leon can't seem not to notice them even when he tries.

"That," answers D, with a smile designed to infuriate, "would be telling."

TBC


	2. Part 2

Notes: As people probably know, the English translators of Shin Petshop of Horrors decided for reasons best known to themselves to alter D's mocking title of Lau, _Taishi_ (prince) to _Taizu_, which has no meaning. This uses the former. Thanks to those who read and enjoyed, and especially to those who took the time to drop me a few words - it's much appreciated!

* * *

In the end, it's not his own work at all that proves to be the locus of change, but D's own clients.

Leon's staying late again, as has become almost usual. The pets seem, if not to have warmed up to him, at least to have accepted his presence. Even T-chan only savages him occasionally. Tonight he's adding up figures for D to check; D seems to think it'll be good practice, although for what Leon has no idea. He had to work out bills in the PD sometimes, but generally that was left to the accountant and consequently Leon's not very quick at the math. He's sitting on the couch, bent low over the table with the pencil in his mouth staring at the long list of items with a lot of zeros – damn yen – when the chimes over the door ring. They usher in a group of youngish men.

The faces mean nothing to him but he recognizes the suits, the stances, and the attitudes in one glance. Puts down his pencil, but doesn't stand up, because it's never a good idea to startle thugs packing heat.

Behind him there's a rustle of cloth which must be D coming up from the back of the shop, although he can't hear the man's silent tread.

D's approach is also apparent in the men's reaction; they tense, and two of the four reach for their pockets.

"Leon, you should go into the back," says D, calmly.

"I don't think so," replies Leon stiffly.

The leader, and Leon has no trouble picking him out by the way he holds himself, barks something at D, who shrugs and answers in a flat tone which Leon recognizes well enough: _I warned you_. Leon wonders vaguely what he sold them, and who it ate.

More shouting. D's eyes narrow. Behind him, the usual background noise of the animals rises as if a dial's been turned. The thugs look around, searching the spreading darkness for the dangers they can hear. The low lights, usually providing ample illumination, seem suddenly to be hardly glowing at all. There are shadows creeping up the walls, full of teeth and claws. Leon tenses.

D, wisely not moving, continues in his flat tone. He's interrupted before he gets halfway through by a curt order on the part of the leader, and the jackets flip open.

Leon's already moving, has already leapt off the couch and is flying towards D. By the time the first gunshot breaks out he is tacking into the man, D's slight frame going down easily under his greater weight and momentum.

There's a hot pain in his upper arm as he falls and Leon knows he's been hit; under him D lets out his breath in a sharp gasp. Then they're slamming into the floor, a hard tackle onto unforgiving wood that drives all the air from Leon's lungs. The world blurs for a moment.

His adrenaline is already kicking in, though, and he's scrambling to his feet an instant later. Leon pulls D up with him, arms around the man's narrow waist hauling his weight up without even noticing it, and crosses the remainder of the room in a sprint to dive into the cover provided by the register's counter. It's only then, hunkering down with D held tight in his arms, that he realises the shots have stopped.

Heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest, Leon leans out slowly to peek around the side of the register counter. And then jerks back, feeling sick.

Even in the low lights, the sheen of blood is unmistakable. Animals aren't polite about their feeding.

Leon sighs and leans his head back against the wall with a thump. And then realises through the blaring rush of adrenaline that he's holding D tight to his chest like a child with a stuffed animal. And that D isn't protesting.

This is probably because the delicate lilac cheongsam he's wearing is stained scarlet.

Leon stares dully at the blood for several heartbeats, mind unable to process what his eyes are telling him. Then the world focuses so sharply it's dizzying, and he's moving without thought to tear at D's ridiculous outfit, pressing his hands against the hole in his chest near his heart – too near, oh God, too near – "Holy fuck, D?" he chokes out, all rust and grit.

"Get away from him," says a familiar, arrogant voice. Except that most of the arrogance is gone, replaced by sharp warning. Leon looks up to see T-chan kneeling in front of him, staring at D with narrow eyes.

"What the hell're you talking about? Call a fucking ambulance," snarls Leon, shifting D to lie closer to horizontal across his lap. The Count's skin, always pale, is nearly translucent; his long lashes sweep darkly over his cheeks, ebony hair falling away from his face. His body limp and heavy in Leon's arms. It's the first time he's ever held him, the closest he's ever been to D. So close he can feel the heat of his body, smell his scent: orange blossom and musk – and blood, metallic, choking blood. Leon's stomach twists so tightly he thinks he'll be sick, throat closing up, full of broken glass.

"Get away from him _right now_," repeats the totestu and, when Leon shows no signs of doing so, reaches out and grabs him by the shoulders, tries to wrestle him away.

"Are you insane? Get the fuck off!" With both hands pressed hard against D's chest, he can't fight the boy – the animal – off. A moment later a pair of other boys appear behind him, one with dark scales on his face, another with cat ears and a tail. They grab Leon together and, even as he struggles and curses, drag him away from the Count.

"You crazy bastards, he'll die! You're killing him! Get the hell off me – _he'll die!_" He's nearly sobbing now, between the adrenaline and the fury and the fear roaring like a tidal wave in his head, between trying to throw the animals off and draw air in through his panic-closed throat. Leon's got plenty of training in how to handle disasters, how to deal with emergencies, but he has nothing to tell him what to do when a bunch of crazy-ass animals try to keep him from helping a man who is _dying in front of him_ and _oh God_ –

"Look out," says T-chan quietly, with a bizarre calm. A second later, there's a blast of shadows, as if a bright light had been flicked on and off for just an instant. Except that the shadows are in the shapes of animals, crazy, nightmarish animals all fangs and talons and long twisting bodies. And they're wrapped around D like a dark blanket. Then reality reasserts itself and they're gone, and D's clothes are ripped but clean in their wake.

Lying flat on the ground behind the cash register, D stirs and opens his mismatched eyes as if waking from an afternoon nap. Leon falls right back on his ass as the animals restraining him release him and wander off, no longer interested.

"Should listen to us next time," mutters T-chan, last to leave.

Leon doesn't even acknowledge him. Just stares as D raises a hand to his chest and then sits up with the blank look of a man who's not entirely sure what's happened. He blinks, and turns to notice Leon sitting on the floor two yards away. The expression of naked surprise on his face is almost comical. Almost, except for the fact that he was nearly dead a few second ago.

"What," asks Leon, wondering whether D's actually dead and he's cracked and this is all some insane delusion, "the hell just happened?"

The adrenaline wearing off is giving him the shakes; that and the fear draining unevenly away are making him feel sick to his stomach.

"Ah," says D. "Perhaps later –"

"Perhaps _now_," growls Leon. Raises his hands, like a kindergartener doing finger-painting, to show D his sticky red palms. D's eyes widen again, and his face resolves into seriousness. "My people are hard to kill," says D slowly, staring at Leon's hands. "More accurately, we are much more beneficial alive than dead. There are many who are willing to lend a small portion of their strength to see that we remain so."

"I have no idea what that means," says Leon flatly. His head is spinning, his arm is aching, and he has the vague idea that he may be going into shock.

"When we are injured, the creatures we serve heal us. It's not magic, or superstition, or some secret power. It's simply the will of millions and millions of creatures bent towards one extremely specific purpose." It's the most straight-forward explanation D's ever given him, and Leon would probably wonder if there was some idea of repayment in the Count's head except he doesn't have the thoughts to spare for frivolities at the moment. Just piecing the present situation together is taking all his attention. The aftermath of fight or flight doesn't leave a lot of room for analytic arguments.

"So," says Leon, trying to reduce a mountain to a pebble, "you're still alive?"

"Yes."

"And you're not going to die in the immediate future?"

"No."

"Good," says Leon. And then looks down at his arm, and notices a substantial red stain on his sleeve. "I think," he announces, staring at it with a kind of cold fascination that feels wrong for some reason he can't identify, "that I might be going into shock."

* * *

There's a lot of hullaballoo. Bizarrely, more than there was when D was injured. Bandages and water are fetched, and D makes him lie down on the couch with his feet up while he establishes that the bullet passed straight through the muscle, which is good but painful. Then washing and bandaging while Leon stares at the ceiling and thinks that this should be the other way around. He wasn't the one mortally wounded. He's hardly even peripherally wounded. But D is ordering the pets around like he thinks Leon may expire on the spot at any minute, and then turning to Leon with a steely expression of disapproval which gives away his concern more effectively than a frank expression would.

Lying on the couch while D, wearing a torn cheongsam and with his hair all mussed, makes him drink soup out of a cup makes it almost possible to forget that four men died on the other side of the room an hour ago. That D was lying in his arms dying at the same time.

"You impressed T-chan," says D, while he drinks the soup. "He says you ordered him to call an ambulance rather than listen to him."

"I would have thought he thought I was a headstrong idiot," says Leon into the cup.

"Oh, certainly," agrees D, weaving his fingers into a platform to support his chin and smiling. "But even they usually back down in front of him."

"Yeah, well," says Leon, because it fills in just about any gap. Yeah, well, I didn't. Yeah, well, T-chan's an idiot. Yeah, well, you were dying.

D unfolds himself, takes the empty cup from him and stands. Leon's having a hard time keeping his eyelids from drooping, probably the adrenaline and the blood loss and the shock. "Hey, D?"

"Yes?"

"Let's not do that again, huh?"

D gives him a beautiful, graceful, and utterly _meaningless_ smile. Leon supposes he should have known better than to ask.

* * *

For one day, although Leon doesn't realise it while it passes, the world hangs in limbo.

On the second, Lau struts into the store.

* * *

It's late afternoon, and Leon's cleaning an elaborately carved cherry-wood screen with his good hand for something to do. He doesn't startle when the bells jingle, because a cop learns to get over the jumpiness that follows a firefight pretty damn quick or drops off the Force, but he does look up. And feels his face close into an expression of blankness to disguise all the more telling emotions vying for attention.

"Ah, _Taishi_. It's been a while since your last visit." D sets the language of conversation as English, sailing forward in bright white and lavender silks. He seems to shine like a gull against a stormy sky, the shop dimly-lit as always. Leon tenses, and tells himself his anxiety is irrational.

Irrational or not, the anxiety is supported on the firm pillars of his dislike for the man. Dislike for what he represents: everything about himself that Leon has come to recognize and hate in the three years he's been chasing D. The wilful arrogance, the sense of entitlement, the spiteful pride. Leon puts down his cloth and stands, waits silently in the background to see what shots the man intends to fire off at D today.

Lau ignores D's greeting, dark eyes flashing to Leon, and Leon sees the corner of his mouth twitch for an instant before he can quash his smile. "I had heard you had a new employee," he says pleasantly to D, as if Leon hadn't been here for weeks. "Such a surprise; I thought you always worked alone."

D makes a careless deprecating gesture.

"At least, that was what Mr. Orcot told me," Lau continues, and Leon knows in that one second exactly where this conversation is going, like a fortune-teller reading disaster in his cards. He feels it like a bullet to the chest. "That and a good many things beside. An interesting choice for your first employee, D – a man willing to spill everything he knows about you. I'd have chosen a more loyal one myself. But maybe that comes with experience."

Leon's across the room in a flash, and only the restraint he's learned over hard years of searching keeps him from punching the bastard in the face. He grabs his collar instead, shakes him hard. "You scheming son of a bitch –" he knows anger isn't the right way to deal with this, knows flying off the handle will just lose him this battle faster, but he can't help it. Trying to push down his anger's like trying to push down a sea of boiling oil with his hands – an impossible effort that's doing nothing but burning him. Because this bastard isn't doing it to hurt him. Isn't trying to get D to send him packing out of any sort of revenge against Leon, or even because he gives a flying fuck about Leon – he doesn't. He's doing it solely and entirely to screw with D. He's trying to take _five years _of Leon's life and shred them, to ruin the future Leon staked everything he had on, and it's not even about him.

He's burning all Leon's effort to scorch the one thing Leon wants.

"Leon," says D in a tone cold as a glacial tundra, and Leon doesn't turn because he doesn't want to see the expression on his face. He shouts into Lau's instead.

"You fucking explain what happened – don't you dare pretend this is what it sounds like –"

Lau shrugs, entirely undeterred by the hands fisted in his expensively tailored suit.

"Certainly. In order to profit himself, Mr. Orcot freely and of his own will came to me – without my suggesting it – and volunteered to tell me everything he knew about you – everything," Lau pauses, savouring the word, "so that I would procure benefits for him."

"You bastard," snarls Leon, and pulls back to punch him.

"_Leon_," says D again, and Leon can hear the ice in his tone breaking. Can hear the fury splitting it from below.

"It's not what it sounds like, D – this son of a bitch's twisting it all."

"Let Mr. Lau go." There is no room for disagreement in D's tone. Leon does, barely managing to force his fists open, knuckles cracking. "I would like you to leave, Mr. Lau." None of that _Taishi_ crap, at least. Nothing but politeness as brittle as ashes, ready to crumble at the tiniest provocation.

Lau does smile now, making Leon's clenched fists ache. "Of course. But I will return later, and I will not be alone. I have heard some disturbing rumours of some … missing clients."

D says nothing, but whatever Lau reads in his face it's apparently to his satisfaction; he turns and leaves with the smile still on his lips. They neither of them move until the last notes of the door chimes have faded, both trapped in a still tableau. Leon's anger is bleeding out of him, and the cold fog that's flowing in to replace it is weak and ill-defined. Feels like fear, and shame.

Turning around is the hardest thing Leon's done in a long time. Harder than rounding a corner into gunfire, harder than turning in his badge, harder than stepping into the Tokyo shop six months ago.

D looks like a statue, like something carved from stone with long, sharp strokes. His robes fall from angular shoulders in straight lines, separating him severely from the dim background, marking vivid reality from something less defined. His mismatched eyes, so unusual, so unique, are bright with rage. Leon's not sure he's ever looked so beautiful, but he _knows_ he's never looked so furious.

"I would like you to leave," he says, staring straight through Leon, gaze flashing sharp as a spear. The same exact phrase as he used with Lau, but holding infinitely more anger.

"D, look – it was just – it wasn't at all –"

"You have violated my trust," continues D, slicing through his words. "You will leave." He's at his most haughty, using a cut-glass tone that brings back a forgotten memory of an old case: _Don't touch me, peasant_. A declaration of royalty, although only for a minute. And even then he hadn't looked at Leon as he is now, like he's nothing. No. Worse than nothing. Like he's something dirty, defiled, disgusting.

Leon feels like he's been shot in the gut, like he's sprawling bloody and uncomprehending in front of D, trying to make sense of what's just happened through a thick filter of pain and astonishment.

"D –" The single syllable tumbles out without thought, the sole voice of his shock, smothering him thick and heavy as molasses.

"_Go_!" D's eyes blaze, and for a single instant his face twists into such an expression of rage and pain that Leon actually takes a step back. Then his face smoothes as his emotions are forcefully crushed, only his eyes still smouldering. In five years, Leon's never seen so much anger in D. He's seen the man deal with the ugliest buried dregs of society, with pimps and drug-dealers and murderers, and that which always hurt him more deeply: dead pets. He's never seen this burning fury, so harsh he can feel it clawing into his skin and muscle and bone, tearing down past that and straight through his heart.

A single thought stands out, bright and clear as a star against the twisted roiling chaos of his thoughts: D has never cared enough for anyone to be betrayed by them. Until now.

Behind him, the deep shadows of the shop are entirely, intensely silent.

"Go," whispers D, low and desperate, hidden hands shaking against his sleeves, shoulders tense and pained. Eyes filled with hate.

Leon goes.

* * *

There's no room to think in the city. Everything is pressing and crowded, buildings packed tightly in, roads narrow, sidewalks jammed with people. His room is no better, four walls pressing in on him, tiny and suffocating.

Leon stumbles through the dirty backstreets of Shinjuku, all vending machines and neon signs, pimps and their prostitutes, and the mingled smells of cigarette smoke, kitchen exhaust and air pollution.

Unable to think, to process what's just happened because that will mean processing his situation – processing what he's lost – he lets the crowd carry him. Flows with the tide, and finds himself in Shinjuku station staring up at the railway maps as if looking for guidance. He's been here long enough to recognize most of the names displayed, but for some reason one sticks out from the others: Ueno.

_I want to show you something_, D had said half a year ago. He has only a vague memory of the trip, of his anger swaddling him in a hot blanket, of that bastard Lau shadowing them like a crook out of a bad '40s film.

He's already walking, fingers sliding change into the machine and picking out the necessary fare, then through the turn stalls and up to the platform for the circle line. Following the sole clear thought in his head.

Leon feels like he should be angry. Should be fucking furious at that scheming rat-faced asshole Lau, at goddamn D and his refusal to just _listen_, at himself for being stupid enough to tumble into a trap he could so easily have disarmed.

He isn't. He just feels blank. Like all his rage and righteousness and frustration is on hold. He can feel it humming above him like some huge, dark thundercloud looming over his head, about to burst and fry him. Leon doesn't hold his own self-protective instincts in high enough esteem – no L.A. cop does – to imagine he's holding it off to protect himself. He doesn't have enough invested in their relationship – doesn't _have_ a relationship – for it to be denial. It just feels like shock. Like a complete and absolute inability to deal with the fact that his life has just taken a nose-dive off a cliff and now that he can see the ground coming up fast below there's no recovering.

Outside the window, Tokyo is passing by. Leon stares unseeing at the mix of buildings, at the high rises and low rises and two or three storey dumps. At the crowded streets, teeming with millions of people who know nothing about him and don't care either. At the grey sky above, the heavy clouds threatening rain.

By the time the train reaches Ueno, right on the other side of the city, Leon is starting to feel again. Not outrage, as he had expected, not anger as he had hoped. A kind of cold, close emptiness, like the bottom of the ocean where the dark and chill are so strong they can crush. In his head, clichés run in circles like some kind of ridiculous mantra: You only know what you have when you lose it. You only know what you want when you can't have it. You can only admit to your feelings when there's no chance of them being returned.

D, painted lips taut, skin flushed, eyes bright; _I want you to stay_.

Leon clenches his teeth, hand fisted around the support pole so tight he can feel sweat beginning to form.

"Ueno, Ueno," announces the recorded voice as the train slows, breaking into his thoughts harsh as a bullhorn. Leon lets go, allows the crowd to carry him out of the stifling closeness.

Ueno is much quieter than Shinjuku, even with the afternoon crowds out to visit the park and museums and zoo. Leon follows the thinner current up the hill towards the Park. He doesn't remember now the site D took him to before – it doesn't matter. He just wants space. Wants cool air on his face and the green smell of the outdoors. Somehow he feels that if he's less restricted it will be easier to think, to work things out.

As if that were possible. D's more minor emotions may be capricious, but he's never wavered in his stronger ones. Never repented in his hatred, never spared anyone he singled out for punishment. Like some kind of old god sitting on his high throne, staring down at the people below and deciding on the strength of what he sees at a glance whether to spare or smite.

Leon shakes his head, tries to clear it. He's doing it again. Building D up on a pedestal, making him into something bigger than he is, into something supernatural and unknowable. D may not be entirely human, but he's still just a man. A man with very strong likes and dislikes, who has just added Leon to the latter category. And people in that category tend to have very short life spans.

Raising a hand to run through his hair, Leon feels the first drops of rain. Looks up into the dark clouds, and gets another right in the eye. He curses and rubs at it, stumbling forward as he does so. The rain begins to fall in earnest with a quiet pattering, turning the gravel path dark and bending blades of grass, and the air begins to smell of it.

Leon has nowhere to go, and is beyond caring about getting wet. Around him umbrellas are going up and people are hurrying to find shelter, although not as many as is usual for Tokyo where rain is generally avoided as if it's toxic. Leon glances around, absently taking in the number of people playing on the grass or the thin trees that act as a barrier between the park and the road, dressed in the kind of bizarre outfits he would more expect to see in Harajuku. Maybe, he thinks, they've begun to move to Ueno. He's hardly an expert on the culture of Tokyo. He draws some comfort from the fact that doubtless, D wouldn't know either. He was always entirely clueless about the different cultural districts of L.A., about everything in the city apart from its pastries stores, really.

He keeps walking. He has no destination, but it's easier not to think if he's moving, easier to pay attention to the here-and-now. He avoids the museums – too dark, too stuffy – and heads for the lake. Passes the kid's amusement park, mostly empty, all lights and bright primary colours and creepy-ass roundabouts, and hits the stairs leading down the built-up hill of Ueno park to the lake beyond. Although there aren't any kids in the amusement part, there seem to be a bunch of them playing in the trees on either side of the staircase. Some are running around on the ground, chasing each other or playing in the fallen leaves, others skylarking in the trees themselves while rain drops fall fat and heavy around them from leaves and branches.

The lake is covered in large-leafed water plants so prolific Leon can hardly see the water's surface. Away to his right there's a bridge out across the pond, empty right now in the rain. Also in that direction is the Ueno Zoo, divided from him by large white gates. He heads that way anyway.

There's a small island in the lake further down the shore, he sees as he walks closer. It's within the bounds of the zoo, but not apparently part of it. Its only features are a few big trees, and a large messy bird's nest. A couple of young men are doing something on it, zoo-keepers maybe. Although their clothes aren't anything like a uniform, are skimpy and sprigged here and there with what look like feathers. Some punks, maybe, screwing around.

Leon stops when he gets to the Zoo gates. The rain's still falling, but it's already lightened to a near-mist. Leon's shoulders are soaked but the rest of his clothes are only damp. He turns to look out across the over-grown lake, arms limp by his sides.

He doesn't know what to do. D may calm down in time, but Leon doubts the man will listen to anything he has to say without heavy bias. Doubts he will believe anything Leon has to say, or at least not entirely.

Normal people accept mistakes and misunderstandings, but D's hardly a normal person and for all his attitude of absolute certainty he has almost no experience with real relationships. With trusting people. He has no way to know that a hairline fracture's not at all the same as a nasty break, and no way to distinguish the two.

Leon sighs and runs his hands through his wet hair. Maybe he could write, slip the letter under the door. Or call, if he could find D's number. Assuming D hasn't already sent one of the less approving pets after him.

On the lake, water's gathering in little puddles on the top of the large green leaves. Strange, to see water on the lake rather than in it.

Leon turns to go back, glancing through the bars of the Zoo entrance as he does. There are a few large cages down here, thin but quite tall with perches in them. Bird cages, he recognizes absently. And then pauses, eyes narrowing. Inside there are people. His first thought is again employees, cleaning out the cages. But they aren't wearing uniforms, and several of them –

Leon stiffens, and rakes his gaze through all the cages.

There are no birds in them. Only men and women. Some on the sawdust-covered floor, some sitting gracefully on the perches. They are all wearing feathers here and there about them. His eyes flash back to the small island – again, two boys with long and slender limbs decorated with feathers. They aren't people, they're animals.

In front of him, two girls run by laughing, both holding umbrellas against the drizzle. And Leon remembers the crowd in the park without them, running around in scanty clothes. Playing in the trees, on the grass.

He runs back, sprints up the stairs and reaches the top with his lungs burning – he hasn't exercised properly in months. The same people are still in the trees, still running and lounging about on the grass in the drizzle. All the while a thinner crowd of more traditionally dressed visitors walk past them without paying their more active peers any attention, sheltered by their umbrellas.

Animals. They're all animals. And, they're all people.

Every single one of them.

Leon stands in the middle of the path while the rain falls on his already-soaked head and shoulders, staring in shock at the two children romping around on the wet grass. Here and there brown feathers flash, or a strip of grey fur and pointed ears, or a hint of yellow scales.

_Lives are being taken, taken by the _thousands_, taken _every single day. D's voice echoes in his ears, unasked for, unwanted. _Who is the murderer here?_

And he had objected. They weren't people. Weren't equals, weren't on the same level. Their

deaths wasn't the same thing, didn't matter so much. And D had given him that false, empty smile: _If only you knew how wrong you are._

D, who eats no meat, who wears no leather, and who speaks to every animal he sees as if it can and will understand him.

Leon looks down at his leather shoes and cowhide belt and then back to the children frolicking bare-foot. For one single heartbeat, Leon can actually feel himself holding onto his past by the tips of his fingers, trying desperately to unsee what's right in front of him. And then his grip slips, mind chalking in the lines of the equation against his desire, and he falls into the inevitable reality yawning wide and hopeless him.

A thin, high-pitched whine thrums in his ears; he only realises after it's died away that it came from his own throat. Light-headed, world spinning, Leon rubs at his eyes. Opens them, and sees just what he saw before. Children playing on the grass, ignored by the better-dressed passers by. Couples perched in trees, sitting close and quiet as thick drops fall from the protective leaves above them. Old men and women resting against sheltering tree trunks. People just like those who have been slaughtered thoughtlessly to feed and clothe him for years. Who have been slaughtered thoughtlessly to feed and clothe his people for _millennia_.

He feels cold and sick. Worse, feels cold and sick and utterly _stranded_. All alone in a world he's just realised he has fundamentally misunderstood for his whole life. He's the only man in the world who has taken off his rose-coloured glasses, and he can never put them back on again. It feels very much like being dropped in the middle of a violent sea miles and miles from land, and realising that he will never, ever be able to swim to shore. That he will drown in his solitude.

Leon has no idea how long he stands there, mind twisting and turning and slowly strangling itself in the horror, like a rabbit in a snare. He can't imagine what D sees in cattle ranches, in barns crammed full of hens in tiny cages, in pens of lambs being sold for meat. In tanner's sheds and furrier's storehouses and the huge mechanised slaughter houses creaking with hooks and saws and grinders and –

He later thinks he would actually have gone out of his mind right then and there in the middle of Ueno Park, would have cracked up into complete horrified insanity, if T-chan hadn't shown up. As it is, the boy appears out of nowhere to grab his shoulder from behind, startling Leon harshly out of his gruesome thoughts.

"The hell're you doing, you moron?" demands the totestu, and Leon swivels to see that the boy's eyes are wide and beneath his usual irritation there's a trace of fear, "You _stink_ of terror."

Ten minutes ago – five minutes ago – he would have worried about D's having sent the goat-tiger after Leon to see the perceived treachery revenged far enough from the store that it wouldn't stain the expensive floors. Now –

Leon stares for a moment, and then laughs. Laughs, high and broken, while his head swims. The boy, without any apparent thought, punches him hard in the jaw. The sudden pain and the threat of further violence in the totestu's eyes trigger Leon's shallowly buried cop's instincts, and they surge to the fore. Eyes narrowed, adrenaline pumping and mind flowing into the state of heightened reaction dangerous street chases have taught him, there's no room for moral quandaries. No room for the appalled shock crushing him like a slab of lead.

"T-chan?" he grits out, shoulders tense, hands fisted. The boy relaxes slightly, lithe form straightening.

"You might've just been stabbed in the gut," says T-chan, indicating Leon's haggard face with a lazy gesture.

Leon, still too close to cracking to be able to deal with the reason behind that, ignores it. "What're you doing here?" And then, head clearing far enough to remembering the fight, "Did D send you?"

The totestu's face freezes for just an instant, which tells Leon the answer before he hears it. He crosses his arms nonchalantly over his chest and shrugs.

"Nope; I came on my own. You looked like a man about to walk under a train."

"And you prefer your food neat," replies Leon, cuttingly, before he can stop himself.

"I'd _prefer_ not to have to put up with four years of D finding a replacement for you," replies the totestu sharply. And then, reluctantly but not entirely unkindly, "He could do worse."

_You impressed T-chan_, D had said. More than Leon realised, apparently. He slowly unfists his hands, adrenaline draining away and leaving him even colder than before, and shaking slightly. He rubs his arms, bullet wound aching dully, and looks around. The park is nearly empty of humans now. But not of people.

"I never realised," he whispers. "God help me – God help us all."

Beside him, T-chan's eyes widen and he looks up at Leon. "You see them now?"

Leon doesn't have to nod. He can feel the truth written across his grey face.

There's a long moment of silence, and then T-chan's expression flattens and he shakes his head, as if shocked by Leon's stupidity.

"What?" Leon asks, a prick of irritation slipping through the cold blanket of his shock.

"Only you would manage to take so long to figure it out. _And_ manage to do it right after getting yourself kicked out by D." He snorts.

"I damn well didn't _chose_ to figure it out now," replies Leon, with a hint of heat.

"You're a headstrong idiot. Anyone else would have realised it years ago." T-chan begins to head towards the exit of the park.

"Anyone else wouldn't have realised it _at all_, you red-haired excuse for a sheep!" Leon follows him, muttering weakly, trying to find the heart for it.

"_And_ you worked as a fucking detective for years."

"No civilian could have figured it out. It takes someone used to the kind of crap that goes on in this world to be able to work out something so completely ridiculous."

"Excuses, excuses." T-chan snorts.

"Listen, you big-horned goat-smelling housecat, I'd like to see _you_ solve a triple homicide with no forensic evidence and a three-day head-start for the killer!"

"I'd like to see _you_ solve it! Your blonde partner probably did all the work."

Bickering all the way, they return to Shinjuku.

By the time they get there, Leon almost thinks he will be able to feel something other than this cold horror again.

* * *

"We're back," says T-chan simply, opening the door and striding in. Leon steps in more cautiously, aware of all the eyes watching him, even if he can't actually see them. The only pair he is really concerned about, though, is the mismatched pair in front of him. D stands so quickly the silk of his white-and-lavender robe swishes with the sound of a sword slicing air. His eyes narrow, pale skin flushing, as he stares haughtily at the former detective.

"Leon –" he begins, voice low and dangerous as a tiger's growl.

"I've got two things to say, then you can throw me out," says Leon, not allowing him to get underway. "First, everything I told that bastard Lau was public information – the same crap I put in my files. He could have gotten it himself eventually, if he wanted to. I sold it for a hell of a lot more than it was worth – for the chance to stay here. To stay with you," he adds thickly, forcing himself to say it. It's worth the flicker of emotion he sees in D's eyes. It's gone too quickly for him to categorize it, but D doesn't bother to hide contempt.

"And the second thing?" The Count asks coldly, with one of his fancy gestures, the kind that make Leon think he must own a stack of Victorian etiquette guides.

Leon takes a slow breath. Glances into the dark of the shop and sees only human-shaped shadows there. "I can see them. I can see every goddamn one of them, D." And then, throat tight and words so choked they're barely understandable, "You were right."

The three words represent the shattering of more than five years of rage and incomprehension and denial. Represent Leon's world coming apart at the seams. Represent the swollen black sea, coming up to swallow him. He can feel it in his chest, drowning him from the inside.

"You were right," he says again, looking up to meet D's shocked eyes, "and I don't have a goddamn clue what to do."

For a moment D stands, too nonplussed to have any idea what to do. It's the first time Leon's ever seen such prolonged shock in D, although he's too shattered himself to appreciate it. He just stands, breathing heavily and dripping slightly on the clean floor, looking like a complete wreck. On any other occasion, D would already have thrown Leon out and insisted on his getting cleaned up before returning.

The Count recovers himself with a visible effort, wiping the surprise from his face and replacing it with what looks oddly like sympathy. "T-chan, we're closed," he says sharply, eyes darting to the totestu at Leon's side. The boy nods, and opens the door to flip the "Open" sign to "Closed."

"Leon, sit down. Everyone else, out," continues the man sharply, and follows them out with T-chan at his heels. Leon does as he's told, shuffles over to the nearer of the two couches and slumps down on its hard cushions. He leans his head back against the wooden frame and closes his eyes.

He's hardly had time to slow his breathing before he hears the swish of silk and opens his eyes to see D re-enter with a tea tray in his slender hands. Of course.

D sits down gracefully, back straight as if tied to a board, and pours the tea with his usual flawless style. As he hands the cup to Leon, his painted nails brush against Leon's fingers, making the American shake. Some of the tea slips out into the saucer, but D doesn't reprimand him. Merely pours his own tea serenely, adds the sugar, and sits back to take a sip. Leon does as well – even without the initial cold of shock, his wet clothes are chilly enough.

"This is what you meant, isn't it," says Leon at last, when he's drunk nearly half of it. "When you left L.A. and said humans don't have the right to board that ship." His brow wrinkles, "Although, you let me on it," he adds, puzzled.

D doesn't exactly smile, but his face lightens. "You're correct; I should not have taken you, even to save your life. It was an unpardonable weakness. But even then, I thought you might one day gain that right. No other human has. It is not simply a matter of sympathy, or of good deeds, or even of understanding. You must _know_ the truth. Therein lies the right to passage."

"And now I know," says Leon, tiredly. "I wish to God I didn't." Killing to survive, killing in passion and the heat of the moment is one thing. The knowledge that not just he, but his entire species, are cold-blooded, vicious murderers thousands, millions of times over for such tiny selfish gains, is too much. Too heavy a burden for his shoulders. No wonder D's so screwed up. He thinks it's only his cop's cynicism that's allowed him to carry it this far. Here to D's door, to seek sanctuary.

"Yes," agrees D, quietly. "Now you know. You may choose to ignore it, or to deny it, but you will never forget it."

"And you? You use this shop to deal with it? Kill as many as you can?" For the first time, he thinks he can understand why D smiled at the sight of that burning plane. It's sickening, but he can understand it. Understand that what D feels may not be hate, but rather the overwhelming exhausting knowledge that he can never ever even make a _dent_ in a species that kills so disproportionately.

"No. I remove the cruel and the stupid. But the pets long for love and acceptance, even if their owners don't know what damage they do simply by living. Despite all the pain man inflicts, the pets still crave an owner's love and affection, and I cannot ignore that. I help as many as I hurt, and I protect those species that I can."

"The dragon," remembers Leon. Remembers it for the first time without the astounded terror he has always looked back on that night with.

D nods. "And many others. I cannot stop the thoughtless cruelty of humans. But I can stop the purposeful killing, and I can help those who mean no harm. I am no hanging judge, Leon." The words, the topic, trigger another memory. One against which a dragon seems harmless.

"Like your father? Have you ever thought – have you ever wondered…" Even now, knowing what he knows, Leon can't bring himself to say it.

"If he was right?" D slowly puts down his cup, bright eyes shadowed as he looks down. "I am many things, Leon. Cruel, vicious, merciless, cunning; I can be them all in turns as required. But it is my weakness, my _impurity_ that even being all those things, I still retain some sliver of sympathy. My father felt no guilt, no pain in the prospect of destroying an entire race, even to save countless others. I am not so lucky."

Leon reads not just pain in D's pale face, but real shame, and it makes his temper flare hot and wild for the first time since Lau left the shop earlier this afternoon. For the first time, the coldness disappears, dwarfed by another emotion. He slams his cup down so hard it rattles and in a moment of rage, not at D but at the father who taught him such complete and utter _crap_, reaches across the table and grabs his shoulder. D startles and looks up at him, mismatched eyes wide beneath raven brows.

"Sympathy's not a goddamn _curse_, D. Having it doesn't make you a monster." D watches him with uncertainty bordering on incomprehension. "An executioner who feels nothing when he kills is a monster. One who feels compassion is a man. You're a hell of a lot better than your father. If there's one attitude I could respect in someone carrying this goddamn curse, it's that."

Suddenly realising he's still holding D's shoulder – thin and warm under the light silk – he lets go and leans back as nonchalantly as he can, aware of the flush on his face.

There's a momentary pause, and then, "You are becoming an orator, Leon, for all that you know nothing of your subject," says D, smiling one of his rare honest smiles.

"Dammit, D, most people just accept compliments," returns Leon wearily, anger fading.

"I find they rarely come without strings."

"Sure; neither did this one." He only knows it as he speaks, builds himself a bridge out over a chasm even as he is crawling across it. In the face of what he knows now – in the face of this new, appalling world, his previous reservations are trivial. Are nothing more than mosquito bites when before they seemed like gunshots.

D's eyes narrow, smile disappearing and face closing in caution. "Oh?"

"I want to come back. No." Leon stands, steps over the table in one stride, and sits back down next to D. "I want to stay. Here. With you." He stays there, damp and awkward on the expensive chintz couch, staring D straight in the eye.

D blinks, looking young and innocent for a fraction of a second before his usual comportment returns – although Leon finds that he can still see it, still see the youth and uncertainty, and knows now what he could never see before. D isn't so very different than him. He has just shouldered this burden for so much longer. And shouldered it alone.

Slowly, carefully enough that Leon could move if he chose, D reaches out to press his warm palm against Leon's forehead. Frowns in mock seriousness: "Hm. No fever."

"D!"

Mocking expression fading, D shifts his hand to trace the curve of Leon's face. Runs the tips of his long nails through Leon's hairline, sending shivers down his back. "You want to stay?" he asks, canting his head to one side like a curious sparrow.

"Honestly? I think I'd crack up if I didn't, D," answers Leon. And then, more quietly, with a flash of his old self, "I can't _believe_ I just said that."

D ignores his aside. Traces the outside of Leon's ear with the soft pads of his fingers and then runs them down below the line of his jaw to rest on the pulse-point hidden there. It's the most bizarre caress Leon has ever known. But then he supposes D doesn't have a lot of experience. "And you will not be lonely? You were pining terribly when you first arrived here in Tokyo," he says, as though Leon were a creature for him to take care of.

Leon reaches up, and, without looking, deliberately puts his own hand over D's. "I think I'll manage."

D blinks again. And then a slow, coy smile spreads across his face. His voice, when he speaks, is throaty and equally coy. It sends a second, lower shiver down Leon's spine.

"Will you?"

"Yeah," says Leon, throwing his past, his ties, his way of life to the wind, and tightening his fingers around D's hand. Takes the first step on an untravelled path, with the certain knowledge that this is the right decision. "I will."

* * *

When Lau returns a day later with a warrant and a team of Tokyo Metro officers, he finds the petshop empty. Cold and uninhabited, the stark three rooms are nowhere near the size he remembered.

The Tokyo Docks' records paint an equally sparse picture.

Time: 7:42 a.m.

Chinese National: 1

American National: 1

Luggage: two suitcases

Final destination: Unknown

END


End file.
